Vik Muniz takes well known images that have become familiar through repeated reproductions and recreates them from memory, using household materials like sugar, chocolate, and thread. He then makes a photographic record of them using a dye destruction method of printing his photographs.

Muniz creates a witty and uncanny effect by translating these well-known images into strange visual puzzles. We can either suspend disbelief by imagining the 'original' photograph which inspired his invention, or think of his work as virtuoso drawings which last only seconds for the camera before melting or disintegrating. This is one of several of Hans Namuth's portraits that Muniz has recreated using chocolate syrup. The original photographs were published in Life magazine.

Dye destruction prints are made using print material which has at least three emulsion layers, each one sensitised to a different primary colour--red, blue or green--and each one containing a dye related to that colour. During exposure to the negative, each layer records different information about the colour make-up of the image. During printing, the dyes are destroyed or preserved to form a full colour image in which the three emulsion layers are perceived as one. Dye destruction prints are characterised by vibrant colour. The process used to be called Cibachrome; it is now known as Ilfochrome.